John F. Kennedy Administration:
Talbot's Views on Johnson Plan

(September 30, 1962)

This memorandum relays the opinions of Talbot, in
which he addresses the reasons he feels Israel has now chosen to withdraw
their support of the Johnson Plan, in addition to stating the course
of action the U.S. should now take in trying to gain the support of
the two parties, despite the nation's partial sentiments towards the
success of the plan.

/1/Source: Department of State, Central Files, 325.84/9-3062. Secret;
Eyes Only. Drafted by Crawford and Grant. Handwritten notes on the source
text indicate that Secretary Rusk was given the original and that a copy
was sent to Ambassador Stevenson.

SUBJECT
The Johnson Plan

This is a personal comment, uncleared with anyone.

We stand at the crossroads not only of the Johnson Plan but also of
the Palestine refugee issue and of our relations with the Arabs and
Israel.

So far as I can assess your talks with Mrs. Meir, Israel is preparing
to go into the promised Washington discussions with the objective of
getting the Johnson Plan decently buried, free of the primary responsibility
for killing it.

In analyzing where we go from here, it is important to remember that
it is the Israelis, and not Johnson or we, as the Israelis would like
us to believe, who have changed their posture on the Johnson Plan. When
the President talked with Ben Gurion last year, Ben Gurion said Israel
was willing to go along with an attempt at repatriation and resettlement
though it did not expect any results. Then the Israelis gave Johnson
to believe they were not rigidly opposed, despite their scepticism as
to the Plan's feasibility. Even so we did not make our decision until
after sending Feldman to feel out the Israelis.

In my opinion, Israel has taken the hard line in the past month for
at least three reasons. Some of the wording in the Plan and Explanation
evokes old symbols of a fourteen-year-old fear of inundation by returning
refugees. (Our interpretation of these sentences differs sharply, but
the Israelis have not yet stood still long enough to examine our appraisal.)
Israel, which has always felt that the Arabs would reject a reasonable
refugee rehabilitation plan, has now been frightened out of its complacency
by the thought that the Arabs might just possibly go along with this
one. Finally, Israel has recently obtained from us all that it now wants,
e.g., water assurances, Hawks, etc., and now feels it can safely be
adamant on the one issue on which we seek its reciprocal cooperation.

I do not discount the political discomfort that Ben Gurion's government
could experience if this plan should proceed on the basis of Arab acquiescence,
rather than with prior explicit commitments by the Arab governments.
My colleagues and I firmly believe, however, that the Israeli Government
could, if it wished, give a clear lead to the Knesset and the Israeli
public, especially in view of the current Israeli jubilation over the
Hawk decision and the implications they draw from it.

When Mike Feldman went to Israel we were persuaded that the Johnson
Plan offers Israel a fair shake and a chance to unfreeze at least one
major aspect of the Arab-Israeli impasse. We are still so persuaded,
particularly since the Arabs have not rejected the Plan out of hand.
We are also persuaded that the destruction of the substance and the
skillfully devised balance of the Johnson Plan, mainly at Israeli initiative,
would rob us of the contingency advantages that the United States could
have obtained out of Arab rejection of the Plan (i.e., getting off the
hook of Paragraph 11 of Resolution 194). To go along with the present
Israeli ploy would, therefore, in my view, put our over-all Near Eastern
policies in jeopardy.

The alternative is to bargain the Israelis into acceptance of the basic,
two-page "Plan" intact. The procedure would be to develop
"amplifications" or "clarifications" of the Explanation
thereof, to meet both Israeli and Arab objections to the final sanitized
version of the Explanation which Johnson handed to the parties. As a
fall back objective (but not one of your oft-quoted fall backs that
promptly become negotiating positions) we would wish to have it appear
that the Plan has been rejected by both the Israelis and the Arabs.
This cannot be induced, however, by teasing, say, Syria into a quick,
snarling rejection of the Plan. If in the end some of the Arabs should
reject the Plan for their own reasons, our position would remain untarnished
only if we had made a record of serious efforts to convey to the parties
our understanding of the constructive and practical features of the
Plan.

In line with the President's desire not to commit U.S. prestige at
this stage to this particular Plan, our Ambassadors and Departmental
officers in all contacts with the parties have held to the approved
formula that we regard the Plan as "good for the parties."
The Israelis have caught the distinction and in a major campaign through
White House and other channels are pressing hard to get us to reject
the Plan so they won't have to do so. The time has come, therefore,
for us to understand clearly what the Plan means to the United States.

I submit that our interests call for the following judgments:

1. The Plan obviously cannot succeed if any party rejects it out of
hand, but

2. There is no practical present alternative to the Johnson Plan, because

a. Johnson himself explored every alternative that had previously been
suggested during the fourteen-year-old impasse and for cogent reasons--with
which we agree--rejected each one;

b. Mrs. Meir's specific suggestions--e.g., that limited repatriation
be conducted under such a rubric as "completing family groups"
and that repatriation begin only after the Arab governments have explicitly
agreed to the resettlement of the bulk of the refugees--reassert long
standing Israeli positions which both the Israelis and we know will
make impossible any advance on the Palestine refugee question. They
cannot be regarded as a basis for progress consistent with the UN resolution
we are pledged to support;

c. If the Plan and Explanation are tampered with, beyond the point
of amplification, to meet Israeli objections, we can be quite sure the
Arabs would have nothing to do with it.

3. During the upcoming Washington discussions we should actively press
the Israelis to accept the Johnson Plan (with amplifications and assurances),
because

a. There remains a substantial possibility that if they are convinced
we seriously support this Plan as the best available device to make
progress on the refugee problem, the Israelis will acquiesce in the
Plan, on the basis of adequate assurances on points of concern. We have
received repeated signals, mainly through Minister Gazit of the Israeli
Embassy, that written assurances on such matters as a fixed ceiling
on the number of repatriates and Israel's sole determination of its
sovereign rights would make a difference in the Israeli reaction to
the plan. Such commitments in writing could be tricky, if Israel should
ever leak the assurances to the Arabs. As a price for a reciprocal commitment
by Israel to acquiesce with the Plan in good faith, however, the idea
is well worth examining. As it happens, we can explore this idea effectively
only if the Israelis understand that the U.S. is determined to give
the Johnson Plan a reasonable trial;

b. After the Hawk deal, even if the rest of our careful Near Eastern
policies be ignored, neither Israel nor its supporters in this country
can seriously impugn U.S. motives or charge us with undermining Israeli
security. Furthermore, given freedom to talk about the advantages of
the Plan as we see them, we can do much to answer the questions that
have been put into the minds of Congressmen and of Israel's American
supporters by distorted descriptions of the Plan, and thus blunt and
possibly erase what otherwise would be a wave of domestic criticism
embarrassing to the Administration.

c. The adverse consequences of failing to achieve our primary objective
would be very serious even assuming that the failure of the Johnson
Plan were in the context of rejection or difficulties by both the Arabs
and the Israelis. No other acceptable formula for solving the Arab refugee
problem is in sight. There is a serious danger that Congress would exacerbate
the problem in FY '64 by taking action into its own hands and cutting
drastically the funds for UNRWA.

d. On the positive side, we have made more progress with the Arabs
in terms of accepting realities than at any time in the past fourteen
years. Frankly, the Arabs have so far been more rational and forthcoming
by far than most of us have really dared hope. They have been brought
a very long way on the road to acquiescence in a proposal which recognizes
Israel's existence, and the implementation of which will, as they well
know, eliminate the largest single obstacle to peace between themselves
and Israel. If this present opportunity is allowed to pass, a similar
one is unlikely in this decade.

In considering what direction to take next, we must keep in mind that
the heart of the Israeli position has no relation to any late changes
in the Explanation accompanying the text of the Johnson Plan. Rather,
Israel is still seeking, as it has done for fourteen years, to avoid
repatriating any significant numbers of Palestine refugees. By intensive
effort we got Ben Gurion to agree in the spring of 1961 to go along
with some plan for refugee repatriation and resettlement, and, in the
late summer of 1962, to go along with the main outlines of the Johnson
Plan as described to him by Mike Feldman. Only a similarly intensive
effort now stands a chance of persuading Ben Gurion to honor his earlier
commitments to the President. Israel's deliberately hard line, which
is being pursued through political as well as diplomatic initiatives,
looks very much like a last effort to avoid implementing these promises.
Unless we are free to be similarly firm, however, we cannot hope to
test the route to Israel's fall-back position, which I believe to be
acquiescence to the starting of the Johnson Plan in return for a written
U.S. commitment to the assurances given by Mike Feldman.

The Johnson Plan is a good plan for Israel, as it is for the Arabs
and therefore for us. It is an honest effort, despite Israel imputations,
to dissolve this intractable dispute. It is the only Plan that has any
chance of progress now or, probably, in the next several years. To cave
in at this stage, through less than full-scale effort in our negotiations,
would be a tragedy straining our relations with both the Israelis and
the Arabs for some years to come.

Recommended Next Steps:

1. It is important that we have authority to make it very clear with
the Israelis from the outset that our objective is still the Johnson
Plan, and that what we are prepared to talk about are explanations and
interpretations and assurances that will (to use the words of one Israeli
diplomat) give Israel sufficient confidence so that it can be guided
by our words rather than those to which it takes exception in the Johnson
Plan.

2. It is also necessary that we have authority to begin talks with
selected Congressional and Jewish leaders to build up understanding
and support for the Johnson Plan, lest the Israelis get to these people
to persuade them to fight us rather than support us. With news of the
Hawk now public, we can be persuasive in our protestations of interest
in Israel's security and well-being, and we need to capitalize on this
quickly.

3. Finally, our Turkish and French colleagues on the PCC, who have
been importuned by the Israelis, need to be stiffened to hold with us
in avoiding giving any indication that the Plan is dead or dying during
the talking process and until after elections.